~ Adventures of a 20-year bonsai beginner

Tag Archives: Captain Jack

If you missed my post from a month ago about the tree I now call “Captain Jack” you can check it out HERE. As suggested in that post, I let my Ficus get happy in the summer heat before doing any work.

It’s time. Here’s what it looks like this morning.

Notice anything different? Sure, it’s grown a bit, but the pot has changed as well. Here’s an image from the original post.

True to the theme of his name, Captain Jack is a bit of a sail. We had some strong storms come through a couple of weeks ago, and I had not secured Jack to the bench. The pot didn’t make it. It happens. Good thing I don’t use expensive pots.

To the work!

I may have given away my intent with this image from the original post. Here I have zoomed in to show you less than 11 inches of the tree, and indeed, it is my plan to cut it way back.

What do you think?

In addition to the long branch removal, I did repot wit some attention to the front and planting angle. It is turned to show off that big root flare at the base, and positioned with a stronger tilt to the left.

So how tall is it now?

All of the remaining leaves were removed as well to force the tree to push out new growth. I promise this will happen. For you doubters, I will provide some evidence. This is a tree I worked on about a month ago when it looked like this:

This is the second time in as many weeks I have made a Pirates of the Caribbean reference in a blog post. You can check out the first one HERE. I don’t know what that means, but since I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with my therapist yet, let’s talk about bonsai… and figure out what it’s got to do with pirates.

I finally got around to bringing this little guy home from my office window to spend some time outside this summer.

Not so little is it! But do you see how tiny that pot is!? This Ficus Microcarpa has done really well in that office window over the past 7 months or so.

As I walked out of the office with it this afternoon, I suggested to one of my colleagues that I should take bets on how tall it will be when it comes back in the fall. Not to suggest it would be taller… quite the contrary.

You see, I like to let my ficus get hot and happy in the summer sun, and just as they start to show signs that they are going to push a bunch of new summer growth, I do whatever heavy work is needed: pruning, repotting, wiring… the works if necessary. In my experience, this approach results in a quick recovery time and gives the tree more than enough time to grow out before they need to come back inside in late fall.

My colleague made a face that bonsai folks know very well. You know the one. The face that suggests we are cruel to our trees.

She searched for the words… “it’s like you are castrating it.” Queue Captain Jack.

https://youtu.be/dRE4cs4AEhk
The quote that popped immediately to mind is at around :50 in the video above. But those of you who know Jack, know that he has a bit of an obsession with Eunuchs. (And those who don’t know Jack… Well…)